The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1887-01-29
NEW ORLEANS.

Tie first time I saw New Orleans wa
on a Sunday morning in the month o
March. We alighted from the train a
the foot of Esplauade street, and walked
along through the French Market, ant
by jackson Square. The morning, aft
er rain. was charming; there was :
fresh breeze from the river; the foliage
was a tender green; in the balconies
aud on the Wondering window-ledge:
flowers doomed, and in the decayine
courts climbipg-roses mingled theil
perfume with the orange; the shops
were opened; ladies tripped along
from early mass or early mar
ket; there was a t%wittering in
the square aud in the sweet old gar
denS; Gagged birds sang and screamed
the songs of South America and the
tropics; the language heard on all sides
was French, or the degraded iargon
which the oasy-goins African has man.
ufactured out of the language OF Bien-
vile. Nothing could be more shabby
than the streets. ~ill-paycd, with undu-
Iating sidewalks. and open cutters
green with slime. and both stealing and
giving odor; little canals in which the
rat became the companion of the craw-
fish, and the vegetable in decay sought
in vain a current of oblivion; the streets
with rows Of one-story houses;
wooden, with green doors and
batten window-sluttcrs, or brick. with
the painted stucco pceling of, the line
broken often by an editicc of two
stories: with galleries and delicate
tracerN Of wrought iron. houses pink
and yellow and brown and ~gray-coiors
all blending and harmonious when we
get a long vista OF them, and lose the
details of view in the broad artistic
effect; nothing could be shabbier than
the streets, unless it is the tumble-down
picturesque old market. bright with
flowers and Vegetables and m%any-hued
fish, and @nliyUncd by the genial Afri-
call. who in the New World experiments
in al colorS. from coal-black to the
pale pink Of the sea-shell. TO find one
that suits his mobile nature. liked it
all from the FIRST; Fingered long in that
morning walk, liking it more and
more, III spite of its shabbiness,
hut utterly unable to say then
Or ever since wherein its
charm lies. | suppose we arc all
wrongly made up and have a fallen
nature; else why is 1t that while the
most thrifty and neat and orderly city
only wins our approval, and perhaps
@FatiIieS us Intellectually, such a thrift
less, battered and stained, and lazy old
place as the French quarters of New
takes our hearts,
Although New Orleans has only about
. quarter of a million of inhabitants, |
and SO many only in the winter, it is
than Pckin, aud | believe than
Philadelphia, having an area of about
one hundred and five square miles.
From Caurollton to the Barracks.
which are not far from the Bat
tlc-Ficld, the distance by the river
is some thirteen miles. From the
To tie lake Tie least distance
is four miles. This vast territory is
trarcrsed by lines of horse-cars which
all meet in Canal street, the most i'm
rorlant business thoroughfare of the
winch runs northeast from the
river and divide, the French from the
American quarter. One taking IA horse
,ar IN any part Of The city will ultimate
y land, having boxed the compass, in
street. But it needs a person of
local erUdition TO tell in what part
the city, OF in what section of the
Of the frog and crawlish, he will
land if he takes a horse-car in Canal
street. The river being higher than the
'ly. there is, of course, no drainage in
. 1t; but there is a theory hat the wa
CT III the open cutters does move, and
nat 1t moves in the direction of
.hc Bayou st. John, and the cypress
;wamps that drain into Lake Pontchar-
rain. The stranger who is accus.
.omed to closed sewers, and to get his
Malaria and typhoid through pipes
conducted into his house by the most
approved methods of plumbing, is
at this spectacle of slime and
Ilth IN the streets, and wonders why
he city is not in perennial epidemic;
Jut the sun and the wind are great
.eaycngers, and the city is not nearly
10 unhealthy, aftor all. Although all
IN one leuel. it is a town of contrasts.
N no other city of the United States or
Mexico is the old ana the romantic
preserved in such integrity and
into such sharp con-
rast TO the modern. There
re many handsome public buildings,
'hurches, o~lub-hoyscs, elegant shops,
nd on the American side a great area
Il Wpll-DaV ol stracfa cnlidlv h,,;1t 80 l.,